To Die Knowing
by Fried Rainbows
Summary: June 2nd. To some, it's a day of mourning and remembrance; to others, an overstated, invalid holiday; and to a select few, a day of celebration and drinking. But did anyone ever tell you how and why that day now bears Fox McCloud's name forever? No? Then does Cameron have a story for you...


**A/N: _Guess who? Yup, it's me, RainbowNoms. And before you read my latest oneshot, I'd like to explain why I'm posting under an alias. Those of you reading Shots in the Dark will recognize this, but I am participating in an exchange program at the moment. So currently I'm staying in Braunschweig, Germany._**

**_That's important because my main is linked to my Goggle account, and said Google account has two-step verification turned on. And my phone does not get service across the Atlantic. So basically, I can't get into it at the moment. Which sucks, but inspiration works anywhere, anytime. So here I am again, giving you another 10k oneshot to read. :-) _**

**_Enjoy, and please review. It means a lot. _**

* * *

I have always wanted to meet Fox McCloud, but never like this.

But life has a funny way of fucking with your wishes, doesn't it? Right before slapping you in the face and stomping you into the ground.

I wish I could say I never saw it. I wish I could say it never happened. I wish I go up to God and say "Excuse me, but this life is defective. I'd like a replacement, please." I wish that was how it worked.

But life is the ultimate firewall. Nothing, nothing can get in and alter the files. No cosmic viruses, no universal trojans, not even corrupted data can exist. Everything moves forward with the same, unchanging rhythm. In the end, that will be my downfall. How far down the road that will be, I don't know, but it won't be pretty.

I only write this because maybe, just maybe, the pain will let up enough for me to last just a bit longer. A day, a month, a year, a decade, how long is a mystery. But even after everything, even after all that time I may or may not have, I will still be thrown into the recycle bin with all the others.

I'll let up with the depressing talk right now and get to it. Lord knows what effect it will have, but I gotta hope and dream.

/\\\\\\\\\\

It wasn't a bad day at first. The second day of June dawned exceptionally normally, as back then it wan't some kind of new age Memorial Day. Actually, I wouldn't call it that either. It's more like hero worship on Fox McCloud, which, if there is a God out there, I'm sure he'd be highly disappointed with. But I digress.

Anyway, my eyes opened around 0930. The sky was indecisive about what it wanted apparently, because signs of both sun and clouds filtered through my curtains. I rolled around in bed a couple times, trying to eke out an extra half-hour or so of sleep for no apparent reason. It didn't work, and I rose to a sitting position five minutes later.

The mirror across the room showed a horrible mess of hair and fur all over the place. Like some kind of Chewbacca creature had come in and done a hair transplant while I slept. One of my ears was bent strangely backward over my head, its black inside visible to the ceiling above. The first thing I did that morning was make both my ears stand erect again.

I still don't know what I did the previous night to make my fur so messy, but I decided it would be faster and less painful to just shower first instead of trying to comb it down. Hell, I didn't even bother to grab clothes. No one else was home to care anyway. My parents were far too busy working for our then mediocre existence.

Of course, at seventeen, "mediocre" meant something far different than it does now. Back then, mediocre was not having anything and everything you want. It still irks me how pathetic that view of life was, even though it has been overshadowed so completely. But now I'm getting way ahead of myself.

I walked, birthday suit and all, to the bathroom. The shower was quick, hot, and pleasant, almost lulling me back to sleep, which would have been incredibly unfortunate.

After stepping out of the drying chamber, the change in my yellow fur was like night and day. The water with the help of gravity had worked so well that even the black stripes across my waist had regained their clear borders. I was proud of myself for saving all the work of combing.

With a contented smile across my muzzle, I returned to my room to actually put some clothes on. Recalling the recent heat wave, a _Crashdown _T-shirt and athletic shorts seemed appropriate at the time. Afterwards, I made myself some cereal and watched some TV until around 1100.

Around that time, my doorbell gave a resounding ring. I reluctantly left my comfy spot on the recliner and walked across the living room to answer it.

As I pulled open the door, my ears perked up and my tail wagged in happy recognition. My best pal and lifelong friend, Leo Brazien, was standing on my front porch.

There was something off about him this time, though. His orange eyes darted around crazily when they weren't focused on me, his large, rounded ears were twitching rapidly, and his short, black feline fur was bristling all over. He was sweating either pure stress or pure excitement; I couldn't tell at the time.

"Woah, Leo, what the hell is up with you?" I asked half-jokingly, half actually concerned.

"Cameron, you're never gonna believe what I just found!" Leo blurted, his short muzzle contorting into a wide, excited smile.

"Was it a life?" I replied snidely.

"What? No, it's so-"

"A girlfriend?"

"I wish, but no, it was-"

"A new porn site?"

At this point, I was nearly beside myself with laughter, and he was silently plotting my untimely demise. One could read it just by the new backward tilt of his contrasting white ears.

"How long are you prepared to keep this up, Cam-bitch?"

"That's for me to know and for you to find out," I said, with a wider, more toothy grin than Leo had before.

"Look, are you gonna hear me out or not?" he spoke, clearly exasperated.

"Fine, what's so damn important?"

"I've stumbled upon an abandoned factory!"

Now I was beginning to question Leo's sanity. Sure, abandoned, bombed out factories were rare since the Cornerian government implemented their cleanup and restoration program after the Lylat Wars, but at that point, I thought he had just found a hulk of half-broken bricks and metal.

"Why is that exciting, exactly? It's just a busted building that the government is too lazy to clean up," I chose to reply quite frankly. I wanted to do only two things at that moment: not give a damn and go play Candid Canid Carnage.

"Because it'd be the perfect place to go treasure hunting! You think I haven't done my research? That factory used to make ships for the Cornerian military! And rumour has it that Star Fox's Arwings were manufactured there as well! Wouldn't it be cool to find old Arwing replacement parts, or some Lylat Wars memorabilia, or maybe something that belonged to Fox himself?"

The way he put it was very persuasive. It did seem likely that something interesting might have survived whatever torture that factory went through during and after the war.

"Plus, it doesn't seem safe for me to go alone," Leo suddenly added after a pause, obviously trying to sway me toward his side with whatever means necessary.

I'm sorry to say it worked. I regret being so easily persuaded to this day.

"Fine, let me grab a Tiger and we can go," I sighed. Tiger was, and still is, a popular brand of energy drink.

Leo's tail jumped happily after I spoke those words. I left him at the door to grab a 500 mL can and a flashlight, just in case. Then, I rejoined my feline friend at the front door, locked it up, and followed him to wherever the factory was.

It wasn't a short journey. Leo led me through side streets, main streets, back streets, and even a train station at one point (we used it as a tunnel). There were dirt roads, clean sidewalks, bike paths, and hilly ground. Eventually, we wound up navigating through a forest, where we met one of the last non-sentient foxes left in existence. I gave him my empty can, and he seemed to have a ball kicking it around with his front paws.

Speaking of the energy drink, by the time we made it out of the forest, my body was in a most peculiar state. My foot pads and legs ached with fatigue, but my brain continued to be wired and believe that I could accomplish anything. If it weren't for that energy drink, actually, I probably wouldn't remember this story so vividly. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

Anyway, we stumbled upon a very nonchalant, nondescript field. Sun was shining everywhere, warming everything. There was no breeze, so the grass just stood up, unmoving, surely buring up in the unrelenting sunlight. After a bit, it became creepy, like we were being watched.

But the field was just that, a field. There was nothing resembling a factory, or even a structure, anywhere. As far as I could see, there was grass. Grass and trees. I wasted no time pointing this out to Leo.

"Dude, you liar," I accused, giving him a dig in his shoulder. "There is no factory here, just a goddamn clearing."

"Cameron, do you really think the government is stupid enough to build an important factory like that out in the open?"

"Well, they are pretty stupid about a lot of things, like letting Andross get as far as he did in the first place."

Leo chuckled. "Alright, you got me there. But they aren't stupid enough to build a ship plant out in the open, even if it's surrounded by two or three clicks of forest. They tried very hard to hide it from prying eyes. Sucks for them that I have better than 20/20 vision."

It was my turn to smile, but it didn't stay there long. We had been walking while talking, and Leo had let me straight to a random flag planted into the dirt.

"Don't get the wrong idea; I planted that flag," Leo explained. "I needed to remember where to do this next bit."

He seemed to be preparing himself for some sort of test. He was very meticulous in the way he was standing, making crystal clear his feet were planted at shoulder length, his tail was hanging idly, and both his paws were placed over his heart. Then, he straightened up, took in a nice deep breath...

...and started singing the Cornerian National Anthem. That wasn't the only strange thing, though. It almost seemed like he was trying to make it as off-key and as terrible as possible, like it was some sort of game or prank at a sporting event.

This went on for two verses and a chorus line. I was prepared for my ears to start bleeding any minute. But then, as Leo got to the words "and open up our lives," the ground rumbled furiously. It surprised me so much that I lost my balance and fell onto all fours. Leo, on the other hand, was perfectly intent on keeping his balance and his pose. I'd even swear he was singing through it all.

But it paid off, apparently, because when the ungodly shaking stopped, I looked past Leo's contented form. Right in front of him, the grass had moved to reveal a brick hatch, with a set of stairs leading downward into the terra firma.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "Leo, how in the hell did you learn to do that!?"

"Learn? I'm just lucky that the military seems to have a sense of sarcasm," he responded like it was no big deal.

"I'm just surprised your inability to sing actually came in handy." I began to get over the shock at this point, returning to my normal, joking self.

"Oh, ha, ha, Cam-bitch. If it weren't for me, you'd never find this place. If I were you, I'd treat me with more respect."

"Let's just go, you big, sensitive idiot," I said with a grin, stepping in front of my feline friend to descend the stairs. I heard a sigh behind me. I assume he rolled his eyes, too, but then his footsteps followed mine downward.

I still don't know how we missed the group of ships parked just inside the far line of trees. Not only were they not built for forest camouflage, but I would learn later that one of them had actually performed a crash landing and was still smoking when we arrived. As much as I want to say which ship it was right now, it would spoil the story, and I want to make this as authentic as possible to what I knew back then.

It got dark rapidly the farther down the stairs we went. Soon I was forced to switch on my flashlight. At the same time, Leo's beam switched on behind me.

Another set of mechanical crashes and groans nearly scared me to death as we continued to descend. Leo, sensing (and probably observing, thanks to my tail) my fear, chose to explain.

"It's just the hatch behind us, you scared little kitten," he laughed. I growled in his direction and kept going.

The stairs started widening. Our flashlight beams started to become helpless against the growing, suffocating darkness. I think I remember not realizing the existence of the last stair and nearly falling over from trying to overstep, to which Leo laughed once again.

"Here we are," the feline announced, walking up next to me. "Pretty damn big, huh?"

"Too big, my flashlight does nothing. Can't we turn on the lights or something?" I asked, somewhat concerned.

"That's a good idea. Why don't you try?" Leo replied. He waved his flashlight's beam toward a large, rusted, wall-mounted lever by the bottom of the stairs. It seemed like a benign enough suggestion to turn on the lights, but the way Leo was smiling made it seem like he had evil intentions to me.

Regardless, I walked over-albeit carefully and warily-to the switch. I wedged the flashlight between the side of my neck and my shoulder, gripped the metal bar with both paws, and heaved upward.

An ungodly crack like...I dunno, constipated lightning? If that makes sense? For some reason, that describes it in my mind. Anyway, this strange crack rang out. The lights suddenly flashed for a very brief moment as an atomic bomb might flash, then it disappeared in a rain of sparks.

I will admit that I was scared out of my fucking mind then. Unnaturally tall ears, completely bushed out tail and fur, the whole nine yards. And Leo, well he just stood there, with that same condescending smile as he watched me freak out to the light of the continually raining sparks. With my heart pounding out of my chest, and a mountain of rage growing out of my body, I had a few choice words for the bastard of a feline.

"Why the fuck didn't you warn me about that, you chainsaw fucking piece of shit?!" I yelled, still pinned to the wall in shock. My voice echoed round and round the empty factory, to which Leo's laughter followed.

"I won't lie, that scared the hell out of me, too," he explained between bouts of laughter. "Part of the reason I didn't want to come back alone, actually. By the way, you should switch the lights back off, before you start a fire."

I followed the direction of his claw to the ceiling. Sparks were indeed still falling from the faulty wiring, and on the far end of the building, down by the offices, many flashes were occurring to a irregular beat. I suppose that should of rang some alarm bells, too, but I was too busy regaining my composure to care about irregular beats.

Anyway, I returned the lever to its original position, and we kept navigating by flashlight. Around, around, and around again we went, wandering between all manner of busted machines, assembly line parts, and the occasional can of garbage that's been rotting for two years straight. We soon came up with a system of warning each other about these areas; as soon as one of us smelled something dubious, we shouted "RSS!" which stood for "Random Shit Smell."

There exist a lot of clichès that might accurately describe what it was like to creep around such a place. You could call it post-apocalyptic, but the factory wasn't actually destroyed, or even touched by the Lylat Wars. A better idea might be post zombie apocalypse, but there were no signs of a struggle either. It was more like one day everyone decided to just pack up and leave. For once, abandoned meant just that - abandoned.

Ships sat half-assembled on the lines, spare parts lay strewn about, and I think I even saw a half-eaten lunch on the floor. Leo and I took none of it, even though that had been our first intention. Instead, we wound up treating the place with a sort of reverence, as if it was an abandoned church or a genocide memorial. At that time, I could even, ever so slightly, hear the sounds of workers shouting and machinery running. Or, at least, that's what I thought it was.

I noticed Leo's ears were trying to perk in the same direction as mine, toward those same offices. He appeared to ignore that sensory input; as did I, to an extent. I did steal a glance in that direction, but all I saw was that same distant flashing. I suppose by then I should have realized something was off, but at the time, I just thought the office lights were connected to a separate switch.

I vaguely wondered why the Cornerian military would just up and desert such an advanced and important factory. Sure, they've never been the most sensible military around, but this seemed something of a new low for stupidity. In the end, though, I decided to let bygones be bygones. That, and my train of thought was thoroughly interrupted.

The two of us were still creeping between the dormant machines and unfinished ships when it happened. I don't know how, from who, or from where, but something told me to grab Leo and duck. Whether it was my guardian angel speaking, or just my last and most profound warning to get the fuck out, or both, I still don't know to this day. But thank God I listened to it.

I forcibly took Leo by his shoulders and pulled him down. Right before he was about to ask what I thought I was doing with the help of swear words, we both saw why. A single green laser bolt flew by, aimed right where Leo's head was less than a second ago.

We glanced at each other, shocked and wide-eyed. Then, we looked back up at the factory's dull ceiling, at the laser bolt that had passed by in a blink. Together, we slowly raised up to our knees to look in the direction the laser bolt had traveled. Embedded in the bricks, a couple feet to the left of the stairwell, was the laser's mark; a depression about six inches deep, with a ring of black surrounding it. It still smoldered.

"Dude, what the fuck was that?" Leo whispered, trying to realize the full meaning of what just happened.

"You want to know what I think?" I replied slowly. Even though I had averted disaster, an image of a dead Leo, eyes stuck open curiously, sprawled across the conveyor belt behind him, still clung persistently to my vision. "I think it was a sign. A sign that's telling us to leave and never come back."

Leo, however, got the exact opposite idea, to my chagrin.

"Leave? Are you crazy? We gotta figure out what that was!" he practically shouted. I'll never forget that look of naïve, boyish wonder on his face. Nonetheless, I tried to slap some sense into him. Like, I literally slapped him across the muzzle in an attempt to make him see reason.

"Leo, are you out of your mind?! That laser almost kills you in an instant, and you want to walk _toward_ what shot it?"

"I'm not out of my mind, Cameron, I'm just curious," he replied calmly. The feline started to stand up and look for his flashlight, softly whacking me in the face with his spindly black tail in an expression of shunning.

"Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'Curiosity killed the cat'?" I pleaded, but Leo was already looking for an aisle that led to the offices.

"Well, I'd rather die knowing than live forever in doubt," he said, his voice growing soft as he increased the distance between us.

"Leo! LEO!" I continued to call after him, but soon I realized that I had no choice but to follow him. I retrieved my own flashlight and sprinted after the feline.

The distance I ran to catch up with him couldn't have been more than 50 meters, but for some reason it still left me incredibly tired and gasping for breath. Leo barely acknowledged my return by his side and continued moving quickly toward the offices, which were growing in size.

Make no mistake, the flashes were still emanating from the old bureaucratic hideaway, as vibrant as ever. As we got closer, though, we could easily hear what was causing the two different colors of light to blink in and out of existence. The fact that all the office windows had been broken only made it simpler.

Blasters. How many there were within the walls of the many cubicles and rooms was not clear, but what was clear was that it was a full-blooded shootout.

Leo still did not leave it alone, even though I could tell he knew exactly what I did. He silently insisted that we continue, and nothing would stop him. No amount of pleading, begging, or common sense would dissuade my friend from his ultimate goal. Even though I knew that full well at the time, I wish I would have tried harder.

Ever notice how time passes quickly when what you want the most is for it to slow down? Well, I know that feeling. Before I knew it, Leo and I had reached a busted window on the far southeast corner of the office complex. And when we looked through it, we did exactly what the first sentence of this little story describes.

We met Fox McCloud.

Met probably isn't the right word, however. At this point, it was more like we _saw_ Fox McCloud. We saw him with his back to the wall adjacent to the doorway of the room, breathing heavily. His striking green eyes stared at the doorway, which was less than two inches from his right paw, holding a blaster. The magazine glowed eerily between his fingers. Several cuts and scratches pockmarked the vulpine, but none were more than superficial.

A group of red laser bolts blinked past the doorway, striking a different wall with an echoing crack. Fox responded by leaning out the door and firing a few shots of his own. He took his cover again just in time.

We only watched-nay, we _could_ only watch frozen in place, eyes poking over the windowsill, paws with an iron grip on said part of the window. I wanted to wonder if Leo had guessed this all along, but I couldn't hold that thought in my head for more than a few seconds. All I could focus on was Fox, and all else faded to black.

It was only a matter of time before Fox glanced in our direction. I'm not sure if he registered our presence at first, and we probably should have made sure he wouldn't be able to. Even if I wanted to duck, though, Leo would have probably stayed exactly where and how he was.

Of course, that is in retrospect, and with retrospect there is always a twinge of doubt.

Fox looked back to the doorway for a moment, then performed a double-take to find two teenagers spectating his shootout. A tidal wave of nervousness crashed through me as he stared with those wide, angry eyes. For some reason, I had the temptation to wave and smile awkwardly.

"What? You two?" he exclaimed softly, for some reason implying that he knew us. "I thought I warned you to get out of here!"

Leo and I glanced at each other, confused. As far as we knew at that point, there had been nothing of the sort. We looked back at Fox for clarification.

The orange vulpine motioned in the direction of the stairwell with his free paw. I leaned through the window to follow his innuendo, for lack of a better word. I saw the only intact window in the entire place, except it wasn't entirely intact. Through it was a hole surrounded by globules of glass, as if it had recently cooled.

I still didn't fully understand what Fox was getting at. He leaned over and fired off a few more shots of suppressing fire. The green light bounced and reflected all over the place, and that's exactly when the circuit closed in my head.

"Wait, _you _fired that shot?" I asked in disbelief, mainly because it had nearly fried Leo's brains. Such accuracy at that distance was not only disconcerting, but gravely impressive as well.

"Yeah, as a warning, now please-" he whispered roughly, but Leo cut him off.

"Well, are warnings supposed to try and melt my head off? Because that's just about what happened."

From those two sentences, I learned two life lessons. Some things aren't so easily forgotten, and curiosity ends when rage begins.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright? I'll buy you a beer when this is over, ok? But now, just leave before you get yourselves killed!" I don't think he knew or cared that we were below the legal drinking age, but it was hard to miss the sense of urgency in his voice. He fired a few more shots down the hallway.

Apparently, we talked too loud, because whoever wanted Fox dead suddenly spoke up.

"Hold it, Fox isn't alone!" a distant, gruff voice spoke. "Leon, go find them, and shoot them on sight!"

Fox's face contorted into one of even more anger, if that's even possible. Nonetheless, we now knew he was battling Star Wolf alone, and that he wanted us gone.

"Little Foxie shouldn't have invited friends to the party!" Leon's creepy, high-pitched voice catcalled. It echoed mightily creepily throughout the abandoned subterranean building, and nobody failed to notice the incredibly disturbing rhyme.

"Run! Now! Get the fuck out of here!" Fox hissed and swore, baring all of his fangs at us. After Leon spoke up, though, that image of Fox was akin to a C-rated zombie movie on the creepiness scale.

I was just about to grab Leo and comply when he started to climb through the window.

"What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?!" Fox and I shouted at him, but he kept up whatever he thought he was doing. He tumbled through the window and looked at the vulpine with the calmest, most determined look I have ever seen or will see in my entire damned life. He said, directly to the hero of the Lylat System, these words:

"Let us help you, Fox. You can't do this alone."

I have no clue where Leo got the idea that he could talk to Fox in such a tone. Of course, the vulpine didn't like one bit of it, and neither did I.

"And what the hell do you expect us to be able to do, Leo? We're just a couple kids who are in the wrong place at the wrong time!" I told him, and Fox continued my train of thought.

"For once, listen to your friend, listen to me, listen to reason! Even if I'm screwed, you don't have to be! Go!" Fox had Leo by the shoulders now, trying to literally shake him into sensibility. Given he completely ignored me when I slapped him right across the kisser, I knew it would do nothing to stop him.

"Peek-a-boo, I've found you!" Leon shouted, and before I could blink, a red laser passed less than an inch from my right ear. I could feel with incredible certainty where the heat of the shot singed my fur. And I knew with incredible certainty that the chameleon's next shot wouldn't miss.

"FUCK!" I instinctively shouted. I hit the floor in an instant, sliding around the corner of the office complex. I found myself hiding behind the empty fuselage of a half-built CBR-67 which had fallen off the belt and was now just long enough for me to lay down behind.

The following piece describing what happened with Fox and Leo after I hid is completely speculation as it is based entirely on what I could hear. It may not be accurate at all, but it seems to make sense based on the events after it, so here goes.

After I shouted and ducked behind a half-built single pilot fighter, I'm quite sure Leo and Fox ducked out of sight from the windows. I heard a few more shots, and I assume the vulpine was back to keeping Wolf, and maybe Andrew or Panther or both, at bay down the hallway. He quit speaking to Leo, and I am also quite sure he was trying to pretend my friend wasn't there.

I guess Leo didn't mind, though, because he was hatching a plan.

Leon was continuing to taunt me. His voice and footsteps were coming closer and closer to the corner, in a rhythm so precise that I could practically count the seconds until the time he would find me and then...then it would all be over.

But then it wasn't, because a few seconds before the end, screams rang out. First Leo's, then Leon's a split second later. The two noises were at least two octaves apart, and in any other situation where I wasn't about to die, it would have been quite humorous. Next came the dull thud of bodies hitting hard ground, and the sounds of a not so minor scuffle.

Against my better judgement, probably, I peeked over the fuselage just in time to see precisely four red flashes go off.

I fell back down and grimaced. Leon had won, Leo was dead, and I was next. Even though I knew I'd see him again soon in the case of an afterlife, I couldn't help but shed silent, bitter tears. And even though I knew Leo's own overconfidence and recklessness had killed him, I still blamed myself for not doing enough to stop him. On top of that, Star Wolf would win by taking Fox's life as well.

To hell with Leon. If I had had a blaster, I would have finished myself off right then and there.

The footsteps came around the corner, but there was no taunting. It seemed Leo had tired out the chameleon, and he just wanted to finish the job and go back home.

I didn't look. I didn't want to look. I kept my eyes closed. It would happen quick, it would happen before I'd know it. Then I'd look Leo straight in the eyes in heaven and say "You bastard!" After that, who knows what we'd do. Anything and everything, I suppose.

Screw life. At that point, I wished for death. Leon would kill me, and as the old proverb goes, I'd love my enemy for it.

"Hey, Cameron, get up, you're safe now," Leo's voice said to me. There it is; Leon had done it. I was dead, and I was with Leo in the afterlife. It had happened quicker than I imagined, but then I reasoned that you couldn't be much quicker than a laser to the head.

Leo's ghost started shaking me. "Dude, get up, we don't have time for this," he told me. I assumed that I kept my memories in the afterlife, so I was now fully prepared to say two words.

"You bastard," I told him, not exactly shouting, but at least loud enough for him to hear it nice and clearly.

"Oh, so this is the thanks I get for saving your fur?" he asked playfully. "Open your eyes, Cam-bitch."

I did as he said. Instead of white, puffy clouds, pearly gates, an angelic Leo, and the throne of God. I saw the abandoned factory once more. Suddenly, my other senses turned back on as well. Again, I could feel the cold concrete floor, I could hear the sound of distant blaster fire, and I was alive. Alive still.

I rolled over and saw Leo standing over me with that same cheesy, condescending grin. In one paw he held a sinister looking blaster with a wolf-like decal on it. His other paw he held out to me.

Frankly, that's the most disillusioned I've ever been in my entire life. I took his paw, and he helped me back to my feet, but I couldn't fathom that Leo had won the fight for some reason. Did I really think that low of him that I wouldn't even give him a chance in a fight?

There's a phrase that my dad once used to describe why he still follows the worst soccer team in the Cornerian league, and it's this: Anyone can win on any given day.

I guess today was Leo's day.

"Dude, how...how did you...?" I stuttered, unable to finish my question. My friend understood all the same.

"Well, it wasn't easy. See my eyes?" He pointed at them, and I looked closer. They were indeed swollen, and the left one was bloodshot beyond belief. "But when I dived out of the window on top of Leon, I connected with his right arm, and his blaster went flying. After that, it was a race to see who could retrieve it first. And have I ever lost a race?"

That stupid grin would not leave his face, but at that moment I didn't care. My friend was alive, and had managed to take down Leon on his own. Or so I wondered. I was still a bit skeptical about the chameleon being dead. Maybe that's another reason I didn't think Leo would win the fight. I guess I didn't believe he could take another's life.

"...So he's really...?"

"Yep. Go see for yourself, right around the corner. I'm gonna go back in and see if Fox will listen to me now." As he finished his sentence, he broke out and climbed through the other window.

As for me, I stood there for a few seconds, unsure of what to think. Could Leon's dead form really be around that corner, just like my friend had said? Could it really be true? Hell, I didn't know what I would find. It all boiled down to the observer effect: I wouldn't know, and the universe wouldn't care which, until I actually looked for myself.

Step by cautious step, I approached the corner. From within the room, I could hear Leo and Fox going at each other again in hushed tones to the beat of blaster fire. It didn't interest me at the moment. I gripped the edge of the building within a building, and slowly brought my eyes and muzzle around it.

Darkness still prevailed for the most part. Through the light of Leo and Fox's room, though, I saw a pair of green, scaly legs, and tail to match. Underneath them, a pool of crimson was slowly expanding across the flat, nearly frictionless floor.

Even though I was probably staring at a corpse, I was suddenly filled with relief. My further steps toward Leon were much faster and much more confident. For a moment, I was angry at the darkness for hiding the rest of him. Then, stupidly, I remembered my flashlight. I pulled it out and flicked it on.

As it turns out, I had it aimed directly at Leon's face. Boy, did that scare the shit out of me. His eyes, especially. They were cold, lifeless eyes, but the expression on his face, some sort of terror mixed with disbelief, it was frozen there. Frozen forever. And the dark red splotch right between those dead eyes only added to the effect.

"Euugh, damn," I muttered, shutting my flashlight off immediately. Leo was right, and he was also a killer now.

I suppose that should have had more impact on me, but at the time, I just wanted to rejoin the group. I wouldn't even try to drag Leo out of it at all anymore; he was way too far gone. Instead, I silently made my own way into the room via window.

Fox was still ducked down by the doorway, waiting for his opportunity. Meanwhile, Leo was doing the strangest thing: duct-taping a large mirror to the back of a bookcase I assume he had tipped over. He looked up to me, acknowledged my presence with a nod, and kept working on his weird contraption.

I wasn't sure what to do entirely. I didn't have a weapon, I didn't appear to be needed, and I had no idea what to do except to stand there awkwardly. It was like being in a party room with a hundred people speaking a different language than your own. How do you enter the conversation?

For some reason, I thought Fox would be more responsive than Leo, so I started by trying to talk to him.

"Do you know what he's doing, Fox?" I inquired.

He ignored me. The prick. Instead, Leo answered the question.

"Contrary to what Fox thinks, I believe we need to make a move against Star Wolf," the feline explained in a hushed battlefield tone. "And the only ways to block laser bolts are to either absorb them with a shield, or"-he motioned to his bookcase mirror hybrid-"reflect them."

Leo stuck one last piece of the silvery tape onto his makeshift piece of cover. Fox continued to ignore us, choosing instead to keep firing down the hallway.

I wondered if Star Wolf knew yet that Leon was dead as a doorknob. Perhaps they did, and they were being cautious now that they knew we weren't pushovers. Or perhaps they didn't, and they were biding their time, waiting for their chameleon to come back and report his little mission a success. Either way, they weren't advancing. No one was.

"So, I'm gonna shove this into the hallway as an extra piece of cover so Fox and I can move forward. Sorry we don't have an extra blaster for you, by the way," Leo continued, shaking me away from my amateur analysis of the shootout. "Now, help me push this thing, it's made of solid mahogany or something."

_More like you stuck ten pounds of duct tape on it_, I wanted to say, but it wasn't the time for jokes. Leo set his commandeered blaster on the tile floor and bent down next to the bookirror. I crouched to his left. We both pushed.

Once again, Leo proved himself trustworthy. The bookirror was indeed quite heavy. It made an abhorrent squeaking as it slid across the floor toward the doorway. Even though he did his best to hide it, Fox hated the noise, too, for his ears pressed against his head and the faint lines of a grimace crossed his face.

I couldn't say I liked it, either, and I was never one that could hide his emotions well. At least we could push the thing into the hallway without showing ourselves to Wolf and his cronie(s).

Immediately, a torrent of red lasers began to burn through the fringes of Leo's bookirror. However, somewhat to my surprise, the length protected by the mirror was left untouched. My only concern is what would happen if they melted all the duct tape.

"Pup, credit where it's due: not a bad idea there," Wolf shouted down the hallway, but he still ended it with a creepy laugh, like he had almost planned for the appearance of a bookirror or a tablirror or a whateverirror.

"Leo, I don't like that laugh, I don't think you should use that as cover," I warned, but it was again futile. The feline crawled right past Fox and behind his bookirror as soon as the flurry of red let up. Fox rolled his eyes as discreetly as possible, but I couldn't help but notice and smirk.

Leo raised up over his cover and returned some of the red. Obviously, he missed, because another round of red lasers came back. Once again, the feline ducked just in time.

"Ah, so you're not Fox, are you?" Wolf said mockingly, still hiding a laugh behind his speech. "Then what amateur shooter do I have the pleasure of killing today?"

"I'm a guy known as 'None of your damn business, Wolf!'" Leo shouted back from behind his cover. By now, I had moved over to crouch behind my armed friend. Fox continued to look on from the side room, clearly debating whether he should swallow his pride and work with Leo or not. And as for me, I just wanted this whole thing to end as soon as possible.

"I see. You're a _feisty_ amateur. Well, this will be much more fun then," Wolf continued to taunt, sounding vaguely reminiscent of Leon. "And I see you managed to kill Leon. Somewhat impressive, although for all the knives he owns, he's terrible at close quarters combat."

Leo shot at him once more, to no avail. Strangely, Wolf didn't shoot back. He instead continued to laugh.

"And I suppose you only did this to help out your hero Fox, right? Well, I'm afraid your 'help'"-we could almost see the air quotes he made, even though I didn't know where he was hiding-"will all come to naught. So just give it up and let me do it quickly."

My friend was so visibly and amazingly furious that I don't know where to begin describing it. Not just his tail fur, but all of his fur was standing straight up, bristling. Any more erect and one would see diffraction between the individual strands. Leo was also shaking terribly, as if he had a high fever. It was no wonder he couldn't hit a thing. Wolf's taunts were hitting him so hard that he could no longer focus.

"For your fucking information, Wolf, he's actually doing quite well!" Fox cried out, surprising both of us. I glanced to the right and there he was, squatting behind the bookirror with us, newfound belief in us written on his emerald eyes.

"Aw, how touching! Little Foxie's standing up for his wittle fwiends! How hilarious!" Now he was fully laughing, as if the events of the last five minutes were one big cosmic joke. Hell, he hadn't even shot at us since I crouched down with Leo. The lupine just kept taunting and laughing like a sixth grade bully.

Wolf was really pushing it far with Leo now. Regardless of his own safety, the feline got up and fired an entire magazine down the empty hallway.

"Here's a little tip, amateur," Wolf spoke up again. "If you're going to shoot someone, actually make sure they're there." He sounded like a high school teacher scolding one of their students for not knowing something extremely simple now, but he still did not return fire.

"Go fuck your blaster with your needle dick, Wolf!" Leo yelled vehemently. It almost made me smile. I had used a rather similar swear at a sporting event a few weeks earlier, except replace "blaster" with "airhole of the ball" and "Wolf" with "referee." Still, I was happy I had taught him a thing or two.

"Point for creativity, but if I had your aim, I'd probably fuck your whore mother 10 miles away!"

They kept going back and forth like this for what seemed like an eternity. And Wolf never fired a single bolt throughout the entire ordeal. The inaction was really beginning to annoy me by then; even though someone would probably die if the impromptu cease fire let up, I was quite tired of watching the tennis match of words between them.

This next part I remember clearer than a sunny day on Katina. I'm not sure why I glanced in the direction of the window Leo had dived out of earlier; perhaps it was just a sense of boredom, awkwardness, a sixth sense, or all of the above. Nonetheless, I saw something there, exactly a half second too late. Deep breath, Cameron, deep breath.

Through the window, just barely illuminated by the single lightbulb in the room, was a pair of cold, purple eyes. And in front of those purple eyes, barely reflecting, was the barrel of a modified MK-386 pistol, fully charged and primed. It was aimed not at me, nor at Leo, which left only one target.

It took another fourth of a second for me to respond.

"FOX, LOOK OUT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Simultaneously, I roughly grabbed the collar of his jacket and heaved him toward the floor.

We fell in slow motion. I shut my eyes as I dragged and pulled, hearing the shot just as I believed we made it behind the cover of the doorway. Leo was probably in the process of whipping around due to my call, and frankly, that's probably why he knew before I did.

The two of us hit the ground hard. Both my paws were on Fox's collar and therefore I couldn't break our fall, leaving only the side of my skull as cushioning. As much as it hurt, and it certainly did hurt, it was the least of my worries.

Again, I didn't have any desire to open my eyes. And for a moment, I thought we were safe. Since the shot seemed to hit my ears after I had gotten both of us into proper cover, for a split second I completely believed we were home free.

Then, the blood ran. I could feel it on my face fur, on the front of my shirt, and it began to soak my right shoulder soon after. Dripping like the somewhat viscous fluid it is, gravity pulled it down to the cold tile, leaving sticky traces down my forehead and muzzle.

I hoped to God it was mine. I hoped to the good God in heaven above that it was mine. Although I felt no pain, it _needed_ to be mine. It just had to be.

But first, I had to open my eyes.

The observer effect.

They opened, slowly but surely, to find the face of Fox McCloud. It was all there; two eyes, two ears, a mouth, a nose, a white muzzle and a white mohawk. I could even make out the slightly blackened tips of his ears.

But there was one more detail, one that made all the difference, one that made Leo and I cry out, and one that made Wolf laugh like a mental patient who skipped his meds. There, halfway between his right ear and right eye, was a hole. A dark red hole, leaking its contents down his face and into the growing pool on the floor.

Only then did I notice his green eyes, once lively, now just frozen marbles in a skull cage, staring blankly into my soul and yet still somehow saying, "You two just couldn't keep well enough alone, huh? You couldn't have just listened to me. Now look what's happened."

Once more, the world around me faded away into an unexplainable void. I faintly heard the noise of Leo hitting the deck behind me, and of Fox's fingers finally losing their grip on his blaster before it clattered to the ground softly. But for an eternity, it was my live eyes staring into his dead ones, me wondering how the hell this all went so horribly wrong.

_Fox..._ I mouthed over and over, extremely tempted to shake him so he would wake up. But from the final sleep, no one wakes up. Such is the essence of the word final, the entire reason for its existence. To signify the end.

With a woosh as if recovering from a flashbang, Wolf's laughter hit my ears again, but it wasn't alone anymore. Another beat had joined the evil tune; that of the lupine's footsteps. I also became aware of Leo on his knees next to me, and of a colder, runnier liquid under my eyes that I would later discover to be tears.

"Aw, so sorry to have cut down your 'hero'"-there were those air quotes in his voice again-"but frankly, he was just a lucky bastard who was always in the right place at the right time. Plus, if he had lived, unlikely as it was, he would have just betrayed you. Just like he did to me seven years ago."

Where Leo's eyes used to be, there was now just a black shadow. Between his bared fangs came a growling I had never thought he was capable of creating. His chest was rising and falling not rapidly, but the change was incredibly stark. As angry and as vengeful as I felt right then, his feelings were at least five times as powerful. And I never forgot that he was the one holding the blaster.

The top of Wolf's head came over the bookirror.

"But look on the bright side," he continued. "At least in a few moments you'll be joining him in Hell." The lupine raised his own blaster at us, and for a split-second, I figured he was right.

"WRONG!" Leo yelled, making Wolf flinch. Then, performing the most spectacular breakshot in history, he raised his stolen blaster and fired.

The bolt cut directly though the lupine's right shoulder, trailing a shower of blood behind it. Wolf himself tried to fire, but he no longer had control of the nerves in his right arm, and both it and his strange bayonetted blaster fell limply to his side. Leo fired again, missing just high and ripping a hole through Wolf's left ear.

"FUCK YOU!" my feline screamed at him as the wolf reached relative safety in a different room. "FUCK YOU STRAIGHT BACK TO THE INNERMOST CIRCLE OF HELL YOU CAME FROM, CHICKEN FUCKER!"

And I was not just standing there idly, either. Before the mystery member of Star Wolf standing in the window could cause any more damage, I picked up Fox's blaster and fired it completely out of instinct. Somehow, I managed to hit some part of him, because he quickly backed off with a shout of "FUCK!"

Leo kept stomping toward Wolf's little "hiding" spot, ready to not only shoot him but tear his head off and stake it on his lawn as well. The lupine refused to fall, though, and despite his bad arm, he got himself through that room's window and back onto the factory floor.

"Lord O'Donnell, what should we do? Should we kill them?" The mystery member shouted his query across the offices through grunts of pain. Frankly, I don't think this member wanted to fuck with us anymore, and in hindsight, I could understand why.

"No, there's no point!" Wolf replied, sounding somewhat desperate himself. "We've done what we came here to do, kill Fox! These kids are actually kind of dangerous now! After witnessing something like that, people are at their best and worst!"

The both of us ran to the window that Fox had shot through almost an eternity ago to warn us of his situation. But now, it was our turn to fire as Wolf and his teammate joined each other right in our view. They waded, jumped, ducked, and leaped across the same obstacles we had crept around, avoiding our shots with incredible precision.

Much to our anger, they would succeed in escaping, bounding clumsily up the stairs with blood dripping behind them as a Christmas laser show of red and green laser bolts struck everything around them.

Once they left, Leo chucked his blaster at the floor with a terribly frustrated grunt. And the last thing I remember before finally breaking down from stress was getting one last look at Fox's still striking green eyes before Leo shut them for good with a flick of his wrist.

/\\\\\\\\

There it is, finally. The true events of June 2nd, 3131. At least, those in which it makes sense to go into detail with. A few more things happened afterwards, which I will mention briefly here.

I was awakened a few minutes later by a concerned canine paramedic. He insisted I follow him to the ambulance for a full examination, but Leo convinced him that the blood on me didn't belong to me. By then, Fox's body had already been moved away from those terrible offices.

We walked out into the blinding sunlight, life moving by in a blur. No one really noticed or cared that we were there. I saw a bloody, bumpy sheet on a nearby stretcher, and standing around it were the three remaining members of Star Fox. All three, even Falco, were visibly weeping, and Peppy was scratching at the sheet where the underside of Fox's muzzle was tenting it. I would later learn the vulpine really liked that when he was a kit.

I felt a bump in my pocket right about then, so I looked down to find the late Fox's blaster still in my possession. I dropped it back into my pants, and to this day I still haven't returned it.

Several months later, Leo Brazien took his own life the day after his seventeenth birthday. The weapon was Leon's old blaster. At his funeral, I said these words, "He was a great guy, an even better friend, and he did just what he said. He died knowing."

And here we are now, three years later, with those memories still as fresh in my mind as they were the day they were created.

You know, I was wrong. Hell, all of therapy is wrong. They all say that letting out your feelings will make you feel better in the end, that it's good for you. So far, I feel it has the exact opposite effect.

I envy Leo now. I really do. He was smart enough to not let the memories of that day haunt him for decades by destroying them himself. I guess I always was too scared to do it, that it would be painful beyond belief somehow, but now I realize how quickly death actually comes. Take Fox himself as an example. The last thing he probably ever heard was his own name, and then blink, he's gone. Just like that.

When split-seconds count, your body is only a second behind.

Fox's blaster still lays there beneath my bed, waiting patiently for its next use. And you know what, I think I'll give it what it wants. But before I press that cold steel against my temple, I have a few more words.

To my parents: I'm sorry. I know kits are supposed to outlive their parents, but life sucks. It sucks so fucking hard, and I'm sick of taking it. So have fun without me.

To Leo: To the ten years you and I were together on Corneria, to riding bikes through sleet and snow because it sucks to pay for the bus, and to friendship beyond the grave, I raise this heavy glass to you. In it contains my last drink of Tiger. I'll regret not living long enough to taste alcohol for you, but I know you understand my reasons.

To Fox: I am so damn sorry for everything Leo and I did. We know full well that we directly caused your premature death, and even though it is very likely you'll never read this, I want you to know that I hope you're still up for that beer with us. That is, if you can ever forgive us.

To Wolf: Even though it's even less likely you'll read this, I still want to say this for everyone to hear: You bastard. I don't know what Fox did to you, but did it really warrant chasing him for seven years just for revenge? If that's the case, then I hope you got what you wanted, and I hope it's worth being banished to your special circle of Hell once someone gets the guts to murder you in your sleep.

And to whomever may find this: I have no control over your actions. But there is one copy of this story on the printer, and another on the flash drive next to the keyboard. I implore you to get this story out somehow. Self-publish it if you must, but please do something. Otherwise, my three years of sleepless nights will come to nothing.

Well, that's it. Fox's blaster is waiting. But it's just like Leo said. At least I'll die knowing.

And now you will, too.

Peace.


End file.
